Posts Tagged: "PAAS"

Five Tips for Keeping Safe with Your Head in the Cloud

Management of trade secrets is fraught with competing interests. There is the tradeoff between security and inconvenience—for example, the annoying wait for a special code to allow “two-factor identification” when you already have your password handy. There is trusting your employees while knowing they might leave to join a competitor. And there is the tension between corporate secrecy and the public interest, such as when the fire department insists on knowing what toxic chemicals are used in your facility. And now we have the cloud (like “internet,” its ubiquity merits lower case), which offers unparalleled convenience and flexibility to outsource corporate data management to others. But moving IT functions outside the enterprise creates new vulnerabilities for that data, which happens to be the fastest growing and most valuable category of commercial assets. So understanding this environment has to be a high priority for business managers.

USPTO Hopes for More Submissions of Prior Art with New Patent Application Alert Service

The Patent Application Alert Service (PAAS), born of a partnership between the USPTO and Reed Tech, a LexisNexis company, is a system that provides customized email alerts to the public for free when a patent application is published. Users of the system create an account and then save one or more searches. Whenever a patent application relevant to the search publishes an email alert is automatically sent. The Patent Office is hopeful that the new system will lead to greater numbers of pre-issuance third party submissions of prior art.